GTA VI trailer breaks YouTube records: 100 million views in 34 hours

Developer and publisher Rockstar Games recently released its first full trailer for GTA VI and the response was extensive. In just 34 hours, the trailer video was viewed more than 100 million times.

No other content in the West has ever achieved this before. This beats virtually all launch day records for videos with just one exception, or rather two: South Korean boy band "Bangtan Sonyeondan" ("Bulletproof Boy Scouts" in English) released two songs in the past and the GTA VI trailer has yet to break their launch record. Their song "Dynamite" reaped around 101.1 million views 24 hours after its launch in August 2020. The band was able to surpass this number a year later with "Butter", reaching 108 million views.

This means that the GTA trailer now occupies a commanding third place, which was previously held by another K-pop band, Blackpink, which came in at 86.3 million views in June 2020.

Some say that Rockstar could have even reached the top of YouTube, as there were some difficulties that may have cost the trailer some views. On the one hand, the publisher was forced to launch the trailer at an inopportune time due to a leak. On the other hand, the bands' music videos can only be found on YouTube, while viewers of the GTA trailer have alternative viewing options on other platforms, such as Gamespot (17 million views) and IGN (3 million views).